A Twist in the Tale
by Tutankhamunfreak
Summary: The legend of the Founders is well known. That Salazar left the school, leaving the Chamber of Secrets as his legacy is fact. But what is the truth behind this legend? The truth may be more horrifying than anyone imagined and at the centre, a mysterious warlock by the name of Myrddin... T for dark content. Part 1 of 3.


**Before anyone starts to complain, I have no time to do a sequel at the moment. There might be one when I have time to post but that might not be for a while. I have to be motivated and have lots of time to write before anything can be updated. Right, now that's over with we can move on.**

**Weirdly enough, this is another crossover that is not run of the mill crossover. There are elements that can be found elsewhere but if you don't like the route where this is going please don't flame me. I actually rather like this arc, even if it will only end up being a two/three shot in the end (yes the second and possible third part will most likely be longer. Hence the need for more time). If you do like it please leave a lovely review or even if you don't, constructive criticism. We all need a good dose of both in the world.**

**By the way if you were wondering why the rating changed, I was judged on a typo that stated this was K rather than K+ and the site wouldn't save the + symbol onto the summary. So, in order to appease this apparent fault of nature when you could just look at the actual rating below it, I changed the rating. Please now judge on the actual story rather than my typos (unless they are in the narrative. I don't like incentive to become snarky).**

**Thanks and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter or Merlin I would be in paradise. But sadly, I am neither the BBC or JK Rowling.**

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><p>It was dark when they came for him. He was usually in bed, asleep, but something had kept him up. The Old Religion called out in anguish and he could feel the pain of those dragged out to bonfires, screaming in terror. Wizard had turned on Warlock and Witch on Fey as the Latin wizards attempted to stomp out all those who still practised the Ancient Art. And finally, they came for him.<p>

He would have left hours beforehand had it not been for the fact that Aithusa decided that tonight was the night to lay her eggs. She must have been sitting on them for a while but he had not wanted to pressure her into laying them early. Nature would always take its course eventually. He did not even realise that they were there, so caught up in the moment and shared happiness with that of his kin, one of the few left who remembered a time out of hiding that they managed to ambush him. A flash of scarlet was the only warning, all the more painful for its shared colour with that of Camelot. It was a short scuffle where they incapacitated him before chaining Aithusa and dragging the pair of them underground. He did not know what for and he never saw most of his captors again.

The chains they left him in had been made years before, designed during a time when the High Priests and Priestesses had been at their most powerful for criminals amongst their own. The goblins did not know what magic imbued them, did not know the pain they put him in as they brought meals twice a day. Water dripping from above was the only drink available and there was nothing but the darkness and the shrieks of Aithusa, calling for her lost eggs. They were still there, unharmed. They would be hatched when the Latin wizards called for them- after all, there was no point in executing the last true dragons left in the world too soon. They would make the best guards for thousands of years to come, slaughtered when they were too old for any use at all.

It took over a week for him to receive a visitor. It was not the man he was expecting. Green and silver robes, a thin pointed face and long dark hair- he did not recognise him as one of his captors but the Old Religion whispered that this was one of them. However, his memory of that night was still hazy due to the fact that he had been unconscious for most of it- and what would his friends of old have said if they knew that? But this man was not here to gloat. In fact, the man did not speak a word, instead stared at him in a kind of fascination. He decided to speak.

"Why?" It was the only word he could conjure up, mourning as he was for his losses all those years ago, mourning for those recently burned and mourning for those who awaited death. His visitor flinched as if struck by his words.

"The world is changing. Your people refused to change with it." It was a statement, a fact really, but it still hurt. He hung his head, allowing a tear to track its way down his face.

"My people have persevered through even hell itself but if you leave me here, I fear you will bring the end to what Uther Pendragon failed to do," he murmured. The man did not react physically this time other than the wave a thin stick of wood and conjure up a chair. He curled his lip slightly at the use of the wand (_what was the point to them anyway? Could these people really not tap into their own magical cores by themselves?_) but said nothing. Sitting, the man took a deep breath before speaking.

"My colleagues do not know that you are here yet. I was charged with keeping you in a safe place where you will not cause trouble. They want you kept alive to hatch the eggs and protect their wealth for eternity." A beat of silence; the man's face was blank. "I do not agree with this." He raised an eyebrow, wondering why this man was helping him in a strange and roundabout way, but he still said nothing. If his visitor had something to say then he would say it eventually.

They stared at each for a long moment and he could feel the man trying to pry past the wards around his mind. He found the sly prodding interesting even if there was no chance that he would get past his barriers. The man eventually gave up, choosing to let the silence continue. Even this in the end was too much for him.

"You are strangely quiet for one who has just witnessed the near total destruction of your race." It was a statement rather than a question but he didn't mind that. It meant that this man had a brain in his head.

"What is there that I can do now? You have flushed them out of their homes but the balance must return eventually. It always will." He paused to let the point sink in. No matter what they did now, no matter how much they suppressed her, the Triple Goddess would have her revenge. And she would do it when they were least expecting it, taking something precious to them and stealing it from right under their nose. The man pursed his lips as if he too knew this fact but could find no way to convince the others.

"You are not the only one to have lost people you know," the man tried again, taking a different route. He raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was going to attempt next. "I have seen thousands of children with magic both of new and old. Those who are born to parents of normal blood do not react well." Another pause and he looked sad. "I have told my colleagues that for their safety and the safety of the other students only two paths can be taken: these children must leave their families or leave the school. I cannot take them if they are to be a danger to the other students." The man closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. "My colleagues do not agree."

"You live in a dangerous time and children are often influenced by their parents. Perhaps if you tried to make them understand your world and likewise your own children theirs, you might find yourself getting along a lot better," he said contemptuously. It wasn't _his_ fault these people didn't know how to get along with one another. They should work it out between themselves, not try and barter for advice from him. The man's mouth twitched as if he were trying not to smile.

"I had heard that you had a sharp tongue and a sense of humour. I didn't realise that they could go together." Meaning that he had been underestimated. He wondered if this man knew his true name or just the one he was using at the moment. Perhaps it was time to find out.

"You have not given me your name. I cannot continue to call you the Emerald wizard, no matter how good that sounds," he said and this time the man did smile. One would have thought that his face would be a cruel one if he had had cruel intentions but somehow he managed to smile in a way that made him look friendly rather than fiendish.

"My name is Salazar Slytherin. My colleagues go by the names of Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff and Godric Gryffindor if you would like to know." He couldn't help the snort of laughter.

"Oh really?" he squeaked, trying not to laugh out loud. "And what is your school called? Pig spots?"

"Hogwarts," the man- Salazar- said stiffly, looking somewhat put out that he was laughing at their names. And just a little bit offended. He really couldn't help the sniggers that his suspicions were confirmed. "And you," Salazar snapped, cutting through his giggles, "you are an enigma that I cannot solve Myrddin." He raised an eyebrow. So they only knew his false identity? Well, it paid to pretend to be nothing more than a skilled physician these days, even if some people were suspicious that he was so young.

"Well, I do try," Myrddin said, grinning and then winced as he tried to shift into a more comfortable position. Salazar merely watched as he twitched at the jabbing pains the chains forced through his body as he moved to gain some feeling in his legs. When he was finally able to settle once more and face Salazar, the man was standing, the chair gone.

"I will return. In the mean-time I think it would do you some good to rest. Those spells must have hit harder than I thought." And with that he was gone, disappearing with a loud _crack_.

_So he's one of the Founders of Hogwarts_ Myrddin thought, laying down and closing his eyes, hoping that sleep would take him to save him from the pain of the chains. _He must have the most sense out of all of them to be cautious of those from non-magical families. Perhaps in time I should tell him that no amount of rest will save me from the damage that these chains have done._

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><p>Salazar returned many times over the passing few years and his fears over the non-magical children intensified with each visit. Myrddin knew that this was the school's greatest danger. Not from the egotistical new wizards who were so proud to have married into other magical families or those who were excited that they were now practically a separate nation. No, the real danger would come from those who did not understand that they had to leave their ordinary world behind them if they wished to live or those who held on tightly to their prejudiced parents beliefs and attempted to end the school from within.<p>

Eventually the time came when Salazar had had enough of the other Founders. It was the only time that Myrddin was ever allowed to leave the cave that he had been sentenced to live in. The chains were not removed and Salazar barely seemed to notice that Myrddin had to stop and rest every so often as the pain threatened to overcome him.

_Damn their ignorance_ Myrddin cursed under his breath every time Salazar urged him forwards. He couldn't keep this up much longer. If he had been anyone else they would have killed him but the Goddess had plans for him and plans for Salazar, plans that she was already putting in place to exact her revenge. A revenge that she was sure to make Myrddin live to see, even if he only just barely held onto life. When they finally reached Hogwarts, Myrddin was allowed to rest, if only so he could please Salazar with gawping at the magnificence of it. Or at least, that was what Salazar intended. In all honesty, he had seen far grander castles and Camelot would eclipse anything that these wizards could dream up.

"What do you think? We built it to protect our children and to teach our people how to blend in without the Muggles finding out that we exist." Myrddin stared at him.

"_What_ did you say?" Salazar blinked at the outraged tone of Myrddin's voice. "You start calling people names, even outside of their hearing, and you'll only allow the crisis to get worse. And as to what I _think_ about your castle…" He paused to listen to the whispering of the Old Religion in his ear, a small smile on his face. "I think that your castle will be brought to its knees by the descendants of you and your adversary, Gryffindor." Salazar looked taken aback.

"Hardly my descendants," he said after a moment. "You forget, I have no children. They were killed in the war between the magical and M- Non-Magical community. Probably those of my sister who hates them far more than I."

"I have no doubt," Myrddin said as they continued on, watching Salazar closely. The Old Religion was still whispering, words of warning and caution in his ear but not for him. "You are sick." Salazar did not react or even comment. He simply sighed, coughed into a fist and continued. Myrddin said nothing more about it. They were both sure that Salazar would not live much longer.

They eventually came to a great lake and stopped.

"This is as far as I can go before the others realise I have returned. There is something I need you to do. Beneath this lake there is a cavern that I was trying to turn into a duelling ring for my snakes but now I have something else in mind." He held out an arm for Myrddin to take and, after eyeing it with distrust a moment, he did. They disappeared with a _crack_ before reappearing in a chamber that was cool but damp and seemed to seep in water from the lake above. It would have been eerie if Myrddin had not been living in a cave these past twenty years. It would have been perfect for wizard duelling too- a large empty space with plenty of room for partners to be blasted back without injuring themselves on an inconvenient stalagmite.

"What do you want me to do?" Myrddin asked, willing to do a favour for an old acquaintance. He wouldn't go so far as to call Salazar a friend, but he did trust the man far more than the rest of his people. He had even managed to prevent the killing off of the Old Religion entirely, smuggling a few choice creatures into his forest and taking in a few Druids onto his private estate when the others weren't looking. Cunning and ambition were Salazar's traits, although Myrddin wouldn't have said that they were necessarily a bad thing.

"I need you to turn this into a chamber. These stalactites must be turned into pillars…" Myrddin did as asked and looked interestedly at the results. It had more of a feel of a throne room now rather than an empty cavern. A long colonnade had been formed down the centre, bordered by pillars twined with snakes, natural emeralds that could be found within the stone pulled up to form their eyes. A statue of Salazar himself stood at one end, proud and tall but plain. A little like the man himself. The doors to the room had also been re-crafted, with another design of writhing snakes glittering with more emeralds. Salazar nodded in satisfaction, clearly happy with his work.

"Thank you. I can handle the sealing off of this room," he said quietly and Myrddin noted a hint of sadness.

"What do you plan to do with it?"

"I plan to hide a basilisk inside. If ever the time comes, then one of my sister's children or another child with the ability to talk to snakes feels the need to purge the school of those who would destroy it from within, all they need do is come down here and release the beast upon them." Myrddin raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Extreme, don't you think?" he said conversationally but he could see what the years had done to this man. His eyes were sunken into his head and his hair hung limply, grey with stress more than age. And there was pain and sadness in those eyes of his. Nowhere near the kind that Myrddin knew was held within his own, but enough to know that this man had suffered as no one should. The war had not been kind to him. Not after the loss of his children, especially the youngest. She had been only five… but the war did not care for the age of children or the grief it left behind.

"I will do whatever it takes to protect this school," Salazar stated, his eyes steely against memories forever burned within his mind. "Remember that."

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><p>After Salazar's passing it was as if the world had forgotten that he had ever existed. The chains sapped his strength and so the goblins were forced to feed him when he no longer could. One brought him the scrying crystal he had kept from the Crystal Cave and placed it in front of his face. Myrddin kept his eyes closed for days at a time so he would not have to watch the suffering of the people of his land. His home had long since disappeared, his friends lives were twisted as was that of Salazar Slytherin. No one else seemed to have known the same man that Myrddin had and his name went down in history as one of the most feared and hated wizards of all time. Myrddin managed to get the strength up to push the crystal a little further away before it gave out entirely.<p>

The years passed slowly and he was left to his thoughts. One day they brought one of Aithusa's eggs before him but he was so weak that he could not speak to name the dragon. They released him and the resulting flow of magic, so much stronger than it ever had been before that it was almost painful, sent him into a deep sleep that they could not rouse him from. When he came to, he only had enough time to name the dragon before the chains were forced back on but now he had something else to do.

Tælfon was as playful as Myrddin imagined his mother had been- so much so that he became such an annoyance to one who wished to be left alone for a while. But Myrddin did not want to waste the opportunity he had been given- a blessing really, he had thought that he was going mad for a while- and so cherished the years in which he was able to raise him before he too was dragged off a long fifty years later. By then he had matured enough that, if ever they wished, he could mate with one of their own dragons, evolved from the wyverns. Myrddin could have sneered at that but the sapping power of the chains had overcome him again and soon, he was back in the same predicament he had been in before Tælfon's birth.

They left him alone longer this time. It was only when, nearly two hundred years later, when he had tried to scream at the hellish depiction of a man in the scrying crystal did they bring him the second egg. He truly did scream when the cuffs were removed, the wave of magic was so strong. It was no longer his imagination- the magic of the world had faded so fast that he was simply carrying most of it within himself and had he been entirely human, he would have been killed instantly. But he had been born with the ability to hold this much magic and more, the very fabric of his soul being constructed of it, that while it hurt more than anything he had experienced before, he did not die. The Goddess had use for him yet.

Anthuil was similar to her brother in the fact that she was just as playful in her early years but, unlike Tælfon, she never grew out of her curiosity for trouble. She would try to fly out and see the carts that took people around the wizarding bank that had expanded around them and Myrddin would be forced to call her back. The cuffs were draining his strength faster than the previous times before and he didn't have the energy to stop her. He winced at the deaths of two people he did not know, but could feel as their deaths began the spiralling revenge the Goddess had planned. But this was only the beginning to a long and bloody end, where she would make the wizards feel the pain they had caused her over the years. And Myrddin could only agree.

He watched and waited as the thing that called itself Voldemort returned. _There is Silena's descendant_ Myrddin thought, looking at the twisted _thing_ in the crystal. _Running around claiming to be directly related the Salazar even though no one seems to have recorded that all his children died without bearing him any grandchildren. And there is his nemesis and partner, Harry Potter. They will destroy the school even if not by design._

And that was exactly what happened some four years later. Myrddin could have wept when Harry and his accomplices released Aithusa but not him. They had saved a fifteen hundred year old dragon mistress without releasing her master and so would have to bear the consequences, if ever they realised that she would not leave the bank alone without her babies. Tælfon was quite grown up with a temper to match. Anthuil cried out every time her mother lashed at the Alley and the goblins returned with the last egg.

"Hatch this and we will let you go," they said. Myrddin eyed them with disgust, thinking over everything they had done to him the past few hundred years. But who was he to deny them another dragon?

"_Rihtw__í__se," _he growled, resisting the urge to smile. She would be perfect for the coming months as the wizarding world fell apart. Justice would fall upon them and it would be his hand that dealt it.


End file.
